Murray Rothbard on rise of Hamas and decline of the P.L.O.

The P.L.O., child of the 1960s, was the last major organization born of the Old Islam: that is, led by secularists who were genuinely devoted to a unitary secular state in Palestine, with complete freedom to be enjoyed by all religions, Jewish and Christian, as well as Muslim.  At the same time that Israeli leaders were demonizing the P.L.O. as eager to hurl all Jews into the sea, the P.L.O. always insisted on distinctions between the aggressive "Zionist entity," which they hated, and the Jewish religion, which they had nothing against.

But that was Old Islam.  Within the last decade or so, as everyone knows, a militant New Islam has emerged, determined, "fundamentalist," and heaping only scorn on "Western" ideals such as religious freedom that had so influenced older groups like the P.L.O.  And so the upsurge of the New Islam, the "hard right" such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, hard-core Muslims who have no use for secularism or religious freedom.  And never, ever are they in a spirit to compromise, to surrender, to the hated Zionist entity.  The Palestinians of the poor, wretched Gaza Strip are almost totally devoted to Hamas, as are much of the Palestinians on the West Bank and among the remainder of the Palestinians, the P.L.O.'s only trumpcard has been the person of Yassar Arafat, beloved by rank-and-file Palestinians as the George Washington of his people.  But even that devotion began to erode a few years ago when the Muslim Arafat displayed the temerity to marry a Christian wife.

~ Murray Rothbard, "The Israel-P.L.O. Accord," Rothbard-Rockwell Report, October 1993, p. 4

September 13, 1993